Lucy Fakes Illness – I Love Lucy

Once again being told that she can’t be in the show, Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball) decides to pretend that this final rejection has driven her to mental illness – she imitates becoming Tallulah Bankhead, and then reverting to childhood, including riding a tricycle around the apartment!

Ricky Ricardo (Desi Arnaz) is about to let Lucy be in the show in order to help his “ailing” wife, until Fred Mertz (William Frawley) informs him that she is faking the entire thing.Ricky decides that turnabout is fair play, and hires an actor friend to pretend to be a doctor, who diagnoses Lucy with a case of “the gobloots” – very rare, and touch and go; in fact, while Lucy falls asleep in her bed, Ricky puts a green light bulb in Lucy’s bedside lamp, to make her think that she’s turning green – the final stage of gobloots! It’s one of these rare moments that makes you wish that this had been filmed in color.